nigelboy's past comments

You have indicated that if any coercing happened, there is no evidence that this was done by the Japanese military directly. I won't get into all of the details here, but this point is not so clearcut. And, indeed, the Kono statement seems to imply that this did take place, so if the Japanese government does not believe this to be the case, then the Kono statement would need to be amended.

As Prof. Nishioka indicated on his paper, the portion of "and that, at times, administrative/military personnel directly took
part in the recruitment.." was based on one case, the Semarang case.

And as the Kono Statement review report which came out last year indicates, the Korean government would not accept statements that did not indicate "coersiveness" element.

"...the ROK side stated that on the question of how the Japanese side makes its recognition, it believed that while it would not be possible to make an announcement that contradicted the facts for Japan, it should avoid employing a
complicated “preface” (such as stating, for example, that “it was not possible to find documents showing the direct involvement of the military in the recruitment” before recognizing the involvement of “coerciveness” in some form)..."

This is one of many problems with the Kono statement itself for the entire passage gives an impression that Japanese military did take part in the coersive recruitment as a policy and when you attach the over inflated 200,000 number, you get a exaggerated narrative of

"...more than 200,000 women and girls who were abducted by the armedforces of government of Imperial Japan..." or the McGraw Hill's

".. The Japanese army forcibly recruited, conscripted, and dragooned as many as two hundred thousand women age fourteen to twenty to serve in military brothels, called "comfort houses" or "consolation centers".

Finally, the overlay is this. Regardless of who did the coercing, if coercing happened, did the Japanese military knowingly condone and facilitate it where the coercing was not done directly by the military?Again, there is evidence to suggest that it would be impossible for them not to condone it.

Again, the recruiment was done by private operators and brokers. As in the case of Korean comfort women, they were recruited by these individuals in Korea where they were subject to domestic laws and the enforcement of such laws were conducted mostly by Korean law enforcement agencies and personnel. On that note, there are instances where there were Korean authorities apprehended those who tried to recruit these women in an unlawful manner.

Using common sense, the Japanese military's presence was minimal in the Korean peninsula at that time. In addition, Kempeitai system (Military police) was abolished in Korea in the 1920's. From a logistical standpoint, you can't forcefully recruit them when you are not there.

When it was revealed that Okada (DPJ head) also received "improper' funds, you can pretty much kill the issue.

The law in of itself is vague and there are no effective check system to verify each and every donations. Heck. Many companies that made the donation didn't even know such law existed. This is where the problem lies.

1.Comfort women did exist. Both sides agree on this. Fact. The only question is whether there was coercion involved in obtaining their services. Without question, this is the biggest point of contention

To be exact, the biggest point of contention is who was involved in the coercion. In regards to the Korean comfort women, there exists no evidence that they were coerced by the Japanese military and that if there was any coercion, the individuals were that of the private operators or recruiters.

So the comparison to that of the Holocaust is lame for this is a well documented from top to the bottom, state issued order to force the Jews, gypsies, and homosexuals executed throughout parts of Europe.

To be clear, what I wrote was simply a statement of fact. When the Treaty was concluded, the Korean government sought and received compensation, as documented in the supporting documents to the Treaty. You are absolutely correct, there was no mention of comfort women at all and no specific compensation with regards to them, at least not as far as I can tell.

Actually, the discussion in regards to 'comfort women' did take place during the treaty negotiations, specifically in May 19, 1953 (第 2 次会談請求権会議) where the Korean counterpart requested to take in consideration of the financial assets belong to them, which was left overseas.

The Japanese administration in Korea has done more to advance the interests of Korea than any other government has done to advance the interests of any country in the world. And if if Korea were a self-governing country instead of a Japanese colonial dependency, be hailed throughout the Western world as an astounding example of national progress.

I would not be surprised that one of these prostestors would meet a Japanese Embassy worker on the street on weekends and exchange some pleasantry. "Are these your kids?" "Are you showing up next Wednesday?" "It's supposed to be freezing so wear something warm" kind of exchanges.

Same fashion as Japanese military? The survival rate of these comfort women (mostly Koreans) was calculated at a dismal 30%. Majority of these Korean women didn't live long.

Let me guess. This 'figure' was based on the following.

"....These numbers are based on "a 1975 [sic.] statement by Seijuro Arafune, Liberal Democratic Party member of the Japanese Diet, that 145,000 Korean sex slaves died during the Second World War...."

'...During the war, Koreans were told that they were now Japanese. This was to persuade them to place money in deposit accounts. They deposited 110 billion yen, and the money was all lost at the end of the war. Now they are demanding that the money be returned. They say, "Give us back Korea's wealth, the wealth Japanese bureaucrats held on to during 36 years of rule." They say Koreans were drafted by Japan during the war and taken from Korea to work, and those who worked well were used as soldiers, and 576,000 of those soldiers are now dead. There are claims that 142,000 Korean comfort women are dead, killed by the Japanese military's sexual abuses. Now they are demanding pensions for a total of 900,000 victims. At first, 5 billion dollars was claimed as compensation, but the sum has been whittled down and now they say they are willing to settle for 300 million dollars..."

"During the Korea-Japan Treaty negotiations (up to 1965), representatives of the Republic of Korea stated that 1,032,684 Koreans had been recruited to serve as laborers, soldiers, and personnel attached to the Japanese military, and that 102,603 of these had been injured or had died. At the time, no mention was made of comfort women."

"...None of Arafune figures have any basis whatsoever. It is most unfortunate that Special Rapporteur McDougal, who held a responsible position working for a United Nations organization, relied on such an untrustworthy source..."

You logic is twisted, nigelboy. Neither eastern Europe nor western Europe States commission and manage prostitution like the Japanese military did. They are not involved parties and they do not commit crimes.

Not really. If the prostitution is legal in those states, the government of the said states regulates them much in the same fashion as Japanese military did by imposing regulations. Your double standards are simply appalling.

To the contrary they do everything in their power to stop such crimes.

Bias and subjective. If you want to argue that the Japanese authorities did not do enough to prevent such wrongful actions by INDIVIDUALS, then I agree with you. But that alone, as I stated on numerous occasions, does not mean the state should take legal responsibility.

You missed my argument. I said that they didn't enquire the topic, so can they find evidence? I asked you to show us evidence that the IMTFE prosecutors did specifically inquire the comfort women issue and you couldn't provide such evidence.

Investigations were done by the Allied units. It's the prosecutors job to prosecute based on the discovery of the such wrongdoings and the evidence found those investigations.

Besides is there any reference to what happened if they refused service? No? Because they couldn't in the enslaved circumstances they were in.

Speculation once again. Why on earth would you set up regulations if people are constantly not obeying them?

No I don't believe so. As I stated before the Japanese military didn't care about humans...

There you go again with "Japan bad, therefore I don't believe you" type argument.

and so what does this have to do with the violence against women?

Nothing. You're the one that automatically assumes that there were violence against these women in masses. Again, your lame attempt to shift the burden of proof.

Oh that sound generous, how say that.

The entry also includes operators depositing and wiring money on behalf of the these women, arranging for their return back home (travel permit, purchase of ship vessel tickets), had movie nights with them, sent telegrams back home on behalf of them, and even received a post card from one of them notifying that she had come home safely.

If a pimp tells you his prostitutes are happy and enthusiastic about their work you take this for granted? Sorry, but I don't believe you are aware of what we are talking about here.

Neither are you for you are simply taking the 50+ years after the alleged incident testimonies at face value.

No, you are wrong, the central question is who was responsible for the crimes.

The individuals that did those 'alleged' crimes. Thank you.

I would put it like this:

Magic leap there. As Prof. Pak Yun Ha states

"...Any coercion, violence or confinement was exercised by Korean brokers against the orders. So if one wants to use the term "sex slaves" to describe former Korean comfort women, they were sex slaves of Korean brokers. They were not sex slaves of Japanese military. Japanese military personnels visited comfort stations only as customers. A diary written by a Korean comfort station manager was discovered in 2012, and it makes it clear that Korean brokers not only recruited Korean comfort women but also owned and operated comfort stations employing Korean women. The common perception in the West that Japanese military operated comfort stations is incorrect..."

Sort of like the "Europe" example you gave or any other prosititution business which has some of these brokers/operators.

I read enough to know that both, Nishioka and Sakurai, are on an ideological mission and not unbiased scholars. They are more interested in stirring up emotions then in a decent discourse and they are both members of known revisionist groups and Nishioka uses personally insulting terminology that is not acceptable in a scientific context.

I don't think you read the column written by Nishioka nor Sakurai in regards to their respective view of Uemura's articles.

Then show us evidence. I don't know of any serious IMTFE inquiry into the comfort women issue.

Because they found no evidence of wrong doing. Why are you repeating the same fallacy over and over again?

It doesn't talk about how the women were actually coerced to become prostitutes, but we know that this happened at some point. The whole story sounds just like the same sort coercion and human trafficking that we can observe in eastern Europe nowadays where women are "recruited" under false pretences and then enslaved as soon as they arrive in brothels in western Europe, just that here it was commissioned and organized by the military of a big nation.

Thank you. According to your logic then, state of "eastern Europe" then is legally responsible for conducting the recruitment and the state of "western Europe" is by default responsible as well since these states allow prostitution and regulates them.

There is absolutely no reference to if and how the wellbeing of the comfort women was checked, but there are plenty references to strict medical checkups concerning venereal diseases, something I would believe to be a rather degrading procedure for the women if compulsory and done frequently.

Of course there is. There is a reference to regulate that the women can refuse service. They also had the freedom to socialize with the military outside like pick nics and to go shopping.

What we can read out of the document is that the Japanese military created, managed, oversaw and regulated the brothels in an almost absurd bureaucratic manner, but that there was absolutely no provisions in place to check whether the women were happy, really treated well and there on their own free will.

Do you think the soldiers and doctors who were assigned there were happy, treated well (enough supplies), and there on their own free will? Is anyone claiming here that these women's living standards increased while they were stationed there?

The "house masters", speak pimps, who where commissioned by the Japanese military, had almost absolute power over the comfort women.

Of course they did. They are the ones that kept the earnings and gave certain percentage to the women. As the recent diary of the Korean operator indicates, he even arranged for wiring their money back to their relatives. He even goes on to say that on certain days "women were not happy" since the customers (soldiers) weren't showing up.

There was no mentioning of any kind of ombudsman or independent institution where an abused women might have gone. So the women were complete at the mercy of traitors that often had tricked them into the situation

This is war time. I don't think the soldiers nor the medical doctors who were stationed there had that luxury as well.

So all together a careful reading of the ATIS report actually backs up the story that Korean women were tricked in and then enslaved mainly through financial dependency in a foreign country without any structure to enforce their rights and with direct involvement of the Japanese military.

No. The central issue of this whole debate and the controversy is "who did the coercing".

Remember the narrative?

".. The Japanese army forcibly recruited, conscripted, and dragooned as many as two hundred thousand women age fourteen to twenty to serve in military brothels, called "comfort houses" or "consolation centers".

In other words, it appears you agree that this narrative (which is the one from the McGraw Hill textbook) is completely off the mark.

Being critical and claiming someone is lying and fabricating facts are two very different animals.

Not really. They are being critical due to his fabrication.

The two you mention are not known for unbiased research, but rather for ideological crusades. Yoshiko Sakurai is a member of the Nippon Kaigi - an organisation that promotes a revival of the fundamentals of the Empire of Japan, and the return to Imperial Japan's monarchy and State Shinto with a restoration of the Emperor's god-like status - and she denies that the Nanking massacre happened. Great company!

There you go again. Did you even bother to read their papers? I doubt it.

So can you tell me which international public opinion this lawsuit is addressing? "Non academic feminist groups"?

There is no such thing as an 'international public opinion'. That's my point.

I don't know what your are talking about. Except for one case non of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East cases were about comfort women. As explained above the prosecutors didn't know about the extent and seriousness of comfort women issue yet.

Of course they did. They found nothing except for the misconduct in Semarang.

The Allied reports you love to mention so often were mere interviews of PWO, didn't do any first hand research and, as you are so worried about cross-examinations, they didn't do any of that either. The Allied reports were not interested in the facts surrounding the comfort womens' situation and rights. They were conducted to get a general understanding of the enemies situation. If they had done a more thorough inquiry and had asked other questions they surely could have revealed the reality in the comfort stations.

Interviews with POW which included comfort women. You're just simply frustrated that they didn't run to the arms of the Allied soldiers. The problem with your line of thinking is that you automatically assume the wrongdoing (taking 50+ years after the alleged incident testimony at face value) when common sense is simply that there exists no such wrongdoings hence the Allieds didn't prosecute what didn't exist.

And btw. could you give us some evidence that the strict regulations were strictly obeyed? We have many testimonies that regulations were largely not obeyed, but from what I know we don't have many accounts of how rules were enforced in the military brothels.

Again, testimonies 50+ years after the fact are merely accusations and the burden of proof is on the accuser. Better question to you is why have regulations in order only to be disobeyed?

Pathetic how they tell the floor that foreign correspondents in Japan need more education... the way the two talk with and about foreigners exposes them as prejudiced, insulting and xenophobic. They show us with their high-handed arguing how shallow and selfish their cause is.

No. It exposes these foreign correspondents of how clueless they were and it exposes their prejudiced, insulting and xenophobic nature for their repeated BS narrative I quoted above.

An outspoken guest commentator will also be replaced, the sources said. Former trade ministry official Shigeaki Koga, who sparked a flap last month by criticizing Abe over a hostage crisis that ended with the killing of two Japanese captives by Islamic State militants, told Reuters he had been told he would not be asked to appear as a guest on the show after March.

Yep. Bunch of viewers complained that Koga was merely using his usual anti-Abe diatribe at the expense of the hostage crisis.

This is purely your prejudge and a personally insulting claim. In the heated up atmosphere we are observing now in Japan in doing so you are becoming an accomplice to the Uyoku people who are assaulting and threatening Uemura and his family.

There you go with the "Uyoku" reference. Those acadamics and professionals (including Nishioka, Yoshiko Sakurai) are simply being criticial of Uemura's handling of the article after several had pointed out the errors and ommissions waay before Asahi's retraction. Him playing the 'victim' card when the walls caved in is just plain pathetic.

History is not a law suit and the vast majority of historians and the international public opinion believes that the testimonies are not mere allegations, but prove that the Japanese military was directly involved in crimes against humanity.

Don't confuse non academic feminist group members as "international public opinion". Your attempt to label them as such and use them as some sort of 'shield' to deflect my argument is also rather pathetic. And again, crimes against humanity falls under Class C of the London charters in which those who were responsible, as in individuals, were arrested and tried under IMTFE.

Anyway the international investigators, Dutch, Philippine and others thoroughly checked the testimonies and clearly stated if they couldn't corroborate the information through other channels.

They did not 'thoroughly' check the testimonies for validity especially the Phillipines. They merely took their testimonies as a 'given' since that was not the organization's role.

And if we consider the circumstances in which the comfort women were coerced and confined to ask them to identify their perpetrator is very cynical and not realistic suggestion. Most comfort women never met the Japanese military officers that were responsible for the actions agains them.

It is not. That's how the 5,700+ were arrested and indicted in IMTFE held throughout parts of Asia.

We also have many testimonies by former Japanese soldiers that do corroborate the comfort women testimonies.

No they do not. What the 'soldiers', in China had seen or witnessed, has no bearing on the allegation of a comfort woman in the Phillippines. Different time, different place.

We know that the "strict regulations" were not that strict at all, except for the health check of the comfort women, which was meticulously implemented to prevent the spread of venereal diseases. The working hours, the number of customers and many of the other regulations were not strictly imposed and habitually breached, especially after 1942-43 when the war got out of control and the Japanese military command was struggling to keep up fighting morale.

The 'strict regulations' include not allowing soldiers to enter the premise if he is intoxicated, ordering to carefully screen through back ground checks (police issued) the operators for some are recruiting underage girls under false pretenses, issuing adivisement to the soldier to pay for the property damage incurred at the brothel to the operator, prepaid ticket to be paid in advance, and women can refuse services for certain conduct such as persons carrying liquor, refusal to wear protection, or 'persons who may exert bad influence'. Those are all there from the Allied reports and archives.

No, I don't believe at all that Japanese are inherently bad. Nor do I believe Germans or any other population are. But I know that humans are capable of doing really horrible things and that we need to look at those instances without window dressing if we want to prevent them from happening again.

And this lawsuit is essentially removing the parts that contributed to western media and so-called academics to inflate the narrative of, for instance, ".. The Japanese army forcibly recruited, conscripted, and dragooned as many as two hundred thousand women age fourteen to twenty to serve in military brothels, called "comfort houses" or "consolation centers". The army presented the women to the troops as a gift from the emperor,.."

As to the remedy itself, I believe the financial part is frivolous. But I do agree to their move to publish an advertisement for their mistakes much like Asahi wrote a retraction article. While many Westerners who read it will be mostly be unaware nor care about such advertisement, at least these western media journalist will think about coming up with a new narrative which is different from their usual boiler plate paragraphs they have used in the past.

Last year's Kono Statement report and the subsequent retraction by Asahi changed the atmosphere of the comfort women issue in Japan for in general, those who were sympathetic to the cause have now turned against them. This is why such lawsuits are coming up.

Are you talking about the Prof. Tsutomu Nishioka who is accusing a former Asahi journalist of fabricating articles? Nishioka's views on the comfort women issue are in line with Abe, but what he says about the Kono statement is purely his interpretation not yet the official position of the Japanese government, but of course Abe want's to change that. As we could read in a previous article Nishioka is now a defendant in a defamation law suit as he openly accused the Asahi journalist of lying and lead a right-wing media witch-hunt against the journalist. Not exactly a credible academic position, but we will see how that works out.

Is this your best defense? Uemura did intentionally fabricate the articles. Any person with common sense would realize that Teishintai and comfort women are two diferent things.

Difficult to guess what you are trying to say here, but I believe you are trying to brush away several hundreds of testimonies by the victims here.

Brush away. Not put weight. Yes.

So you "place weight on evidences" from a time when the comfort women issue was not seen as an issue. How can you call that evidences? Obviously thats good for your argument, but doesn't help us with what really happened.

There is a reason why comfort women system was not an issue. It's simply a private brothel attached to the military.

Everybody who deals with sexual abuse crimes knows that it usually takes years if not decades before victims are able to come forward and speak about their ordeal. Ever heard of this? It's commonplace knowledge in criminal justice.

And it will simply remain as 'allegation' unless the alleged victim identifies the perpetrator which they had a chance to do so when the Allieds were investigating such crimes.

Therefor I believe the most comprehensive official reports that deal with the comfort women issue are the ones from the Dutch and the Philippine governments and they both have clear reference to direct involvement of the Japanese military in many instances. And the testimonies those reports are based on have not been refuted by the Japanese government.

The Dutch case is the Semarang case which is very detailed. There are reports of Manila brothels in the U.S. report (awf site) which gives the details of the operations as well. (Amenities in the Japanese Armed Forces pg. 143-146) which details the strict regulations imposed on the operators as well as the soldiers.

We know why most of the former comfort women didn't come forward earlier and we know that testimonies from decades ago can not be consistent in every respect, but what we get from the large number of very similar testimonies from various nations is a very clear picture of horrible abuse with direct involvement of the Japanese military. In a court case you would call that overwhelming testimonial evidence.

No it does not. Just because hundreds of people all over claim that they have been abducted by aliens and give similar testimonies to their alleged incidents does not prove that such events happened.

It is only the revisionist historians in Japan that keep saying all testimonies are false, fabricated, lies, etc., but those claims, that are obviously also your claims nigelboy, in their entirety are baseless and dishonor the victims once again

Never stated as such. I stated that I don't place weight on them for they were not corroborated or were subject to cross examination.

Taking into account that far more then 20 million Asian civilians died as a result of direct and indirect violence from the Japanese military, we can guess that a large number of guilty Japanese military personal managed to avoid indictment.

Again, with the "Japan bad, therefore this must also be true as well" type argument.

Note that even the Japanese government admits that: at times, administrative/military personnel directly took part in the recruitments.

As Professor Nishioka states in his papers.

"...In the statement, the wording that “at times, administrative/military personnel directly took part in the recruitments” is the passage that most strongly invites misinterpretation. Japanese government officials in charge at the time, when asked about the meaning of this particular part of the statement, responded that it derives from a “war crimes” case in
Indonesia where some Japanese Army units forced Dutch women in a prisoner-of-war camp to work in a brothel for some months.After the war that incident was submitted to the War Crimes Tribunal conducted by the Netherlands, at which the judgment was taken against certain Japanese military officers and civilians who were sentenced to death and
executed..."

Semarang case.

This case have been used over and over but again, this operations was closed down and the responsible officer was reprimanded by the Japanese authorities once this was discovered further proving that such conduct was never condoned by the top.

There is plenty of testimonies and evidence all over the awf site.

More testimonies that cannot their events could not be confirmed other than the Semarang case.

I really don't know what you mean if you say there is no evidence for direct involvement of the Japanese military authorities, nigelboy

You cited one and I agreed that there is one in Semarang case @ Feb. 22, 2015 - 03:52AM JST

Everything else you provided are testimonies 50+ years after the alleged incident and as I alluded to in the previous posts, there are many versions of their testimonies 'on record' with interview in the press, speaking engagements, published accounts, and for some, actual civil court testimonies in which they testified that they were sold by their parents. That alone is not worthy of discredit nor validation.

You probably only read what fits your view and regard the hundreds of former comfort women testimonies as fabrication.

No. I place weight on evidences that are primary which are the Allieds' reports on captured units and post war criminal investigations that followed which resulted in the prosecution of individuals under the following set forth by the London charters

(b) WAR CRIMES: namely, violations of the laws or customs of war. Such violations shall include, but not be limited to, murder, ill-treatment or deportation to slave labor or for any other purpose of civilian population of or in occupied territory, murder or ill-treatment of prisoners of war or persons on the seas, killing of hostages, plunder of public or private property, wanton destruction of cities, towns or villages, or devastation not justified by military necessity;

(c)CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY: namely, murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation, and other inhumane acts committed against any civilian population, before or during the war; or persecutions on political, racial or religious grounds in execution of or in connection with any crime within the jurisdiction of the Tribunal, whether or not in violation of the domestic law of the country where perpetrated.

Over 2,300 cases and over 5,700 individuals indicted. To say that these Japanese military personnels at that time were able to avoid the 'allegations' stated by these former comfort women is simply horse $$$$.

coercing and trafficking a large number of women either directly or through henchmen

Nope. If there were any coercion, this was done by the middlemen/operators alone. As evidenced by the Kono Statement review, there were no evidence whatsoever that suggested the military authorized such actions to these individuals.

keeping those women often agains their will constrained in inhumane conditions

Nope again. This is another claim where you need to show evidence for their living conditions and their movement were on par with the military personnel at whatever locations they were stationed.

And even just briefly skimming the <awf.or.jp> site, being funded by the Japanese government not exactly an independent source, can we find many more pieces of evidence, testimonies, documents and statements by Japanese politicians, including prime ministers, that prove your arguments here incorrect.

I don't see anywhere that it agrees with the narrative of "more than 200,000 Asian and Dutch women who were removed from their homes in Korea, China, Taiwan, Japan, The Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia, East Timor and Indonesia to be coerced into sexual slavery by the Imperial Armed Forces of Japan between 1932 and 1945" or similar.

nigelboy, are you actually thoroughly reading the posts that you comment on?

Yes.

If you always repeat the same 3 arguments again and again, apparently without noticing that counterarguments already addressed your points, it doesn't make sense to engage in a discussion with you here.

You really haven't countered anything. Prostitution was legal at that time. It was the private operators who recruited these women. If they recruited them illegally (against the law), it's the individuals that are responsible. You cannot get any simpler than this.

For some unknown reason, you want to extend what these indivduals allegedly did to that of the Japanese military who took no part in the illegal recruitment. Those few Japanese military units that did so were punished accordingly by the Japanese authority and subsequently the Allieds during the IMFTE. (Semarang case) This was an exception and not the 'norm'.